Extreme Huntress is a competition that’s been around for ten years now. The competition’s aims to gain significant exposure of capable and competent women in the outdoor media realm. Meadow Kouffeld, a teacher and one of the finalists in the Ultimate Extreme Huntress™ 2019 competition, sheds lights on what the contest is all about. Meadow believes if you can get women and moms involved in the outdoors and hunting, you have a higher probability of having a large-scale impact on the future of the North American model of conservation. In this episode, Meadow reveals the Rs of hunting. Vote for Meadow by going to www.extremehuntress.com.
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Extreme Huntress 1 – Finalist Meadow Kouffeld
We’re going to visit with Meadow Kouffeld up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Meadow is a teacher, but more than that, she’s a proponent of the three Rs. She’s going to tell us what the three Rs are. Meadow, welcome to this special segment for you, for an Extreme Huntress finalist. How did you get involved with the Extreme Huntress contest?
Extreme Huntress is a competition that’s been around for years and the intention is to gain greater exposure of capable and competent women in the outdoor media realm. Also, develop ambassadors for women in the outdoors by promoting these Extreme Huntresses, these ladies that have won in the past. Women have a huge influence over their children and adults in general do. One of the things is that when you’re talking about the R3 aspect: the recruitment, retention and reactivation of hunters, a lot of times the effort has been focused on the youth. In reality, youth can only do so much for themselves. If parents aren’t supportive of the outdoors or hunting, the youth aren’t going to be involved, at least not in a meaningful manner. A father is very influential, but he’s also more likely to be a hunter. If you can get mom involved in the outdoors and hunting, you have a higher chance or higher probability of having a larger-scale impact on the future of our North American model of conservation by recruiting more hunters. One of the things that’s important to me is the focus on women, especially adult women, by Extreme Huntress in the hope that moves the needle in the decline of hunters here in North America.
When you think about what you had to do to get to be a finalist, what was the hardest part of the selection process?
For me, it was a popular vote. I’m not the best at promoting myself. I don’t have tens of thousands of Instagram followers or Facebook followers on a public profile page. I don’t have the huge influencer aspect going for me. I had to pound the pavement quite a bit to get those votes. Shockingly, I was quite surprised by the amount of support that I received from my community as well as folks in the outdoor industry. Even though that popular vote aspect was the most difficult for me, I was surprised by the amount of support that I received.
When they tally all the votes, you have the selection committee. How many people get selected to get into the contest?
There’s the initial pool of applicants. From that pool of applicants, they select twenty semifinalists based off of their applications, the entry video, as well as the essay that are submitted.
Where does it go?
Once those twenty semifinalists are selected, that popular vote occurs. When that popular vote ends, the vote is worth 20% of the overall application or the selection process. Based on the judge’s criteria and that 20% weight of the popular vote, they statistically sort out the ladies and the top four are selected as finalists. They get the invite to the boots on the ground portion in Texas.
You told me that the top four finalists are extremely close in votes. Are we talking just 1,000 here and 1,000 there?
Not necessarily the votes, but in our actual competition scores, we’re very close. There’s some disparity in the popular vote aspect in the finalist’s selection. The way it looks with the boots on the ground competition, the competition that took place in Texas, we all came out pretty close in the end in our final scores.
The final 10% of the social vote is going to be important for the winner.
There are women out there that are doing amazing things; we’re not all in little silos by ourselves. Share on XIt’s an important tiebreaker. Even though it’s a low weight on the overall score of the finalists, it may be a very important tiebreaker, if not the tiebreaker for all four of us. We’re actually being judged all the way up until the competition. They are keeping track of our social media interactions and what we’re doing and if we’re following through with what we say we were at the beginning of the application process.
When you think about your two or three-minute elevator pitch about why you should be chosen, what is yours?
Of all the contestants, I do the most for hunter recruitment, retention and reactivation. I am the most involved in conservation organizations. I have the best interests of the future of our sporting traditions here in North America in that regard. I believe that I have a higher-level impact than the other participants when it comes to recruiting new hunters into the outdoors.
How does somebody vote for Meadow?
You go to the Extreme Huntress website, you find the voting area, which has photos of all the contestants. You go and click the bubble next to my head. You use your email to submit a vote. You will get a confirmation vote from Polldaddy. If you don’t confirm via Polldaddy, your vote doesn’t count so be sure to confirm.
What would be your advice to some lady that’s reading this or has gotten involved in the outdoors and says, “I’d like to enter that contest?”
Do it. It’s worth it. It was an awesome experience. If anything, it helps you put things into perspective of where you are in relation to other ladies in the field. It also opens your eyes a little bit that there are plenty of ladies out there that are as qualified that are applying. I would definitely do it. I would tell them to do it because it was worth it.
What’s your personal growth from the whole journey?
I’ve continued to be more optimistic about women and the future of women in the outdoors. This journey has led me to meet a lot of other women that are as capable and competent as myself. I’ve begun to enjoy spending more time with women in the outdoors. It’s not a luxury that I had prior to this competition. It’s also, as a person, made me a little more open-minded about the fact that there are women out there that are doing amazing things and that we’re not all in little silos by ourselves. The numbers are growing and some of the ladies across the nation are doing incredible things. It’s really opened my eyes at a personal level.
One more time, how do people vote for Meadow?
You go to ExtremeHuntress.com. You locate the voting area, click the bubble next to my head, and vote using your email address. You will receive a confirmation email from Polldaddy.com. You will need to confirm your email in order for your vote to count.
What’s your final statement to all the voters that are reading this?
I would love it if you went over to the Extreme Huntress website, watch a few of the episodes, if not all of them, and take a moment to review some of the ladies and their qualifications. Choose your Extreme Huntress, the lady who you think best represents hunting in North America or hunting around the world for that matter, whether or not they have a positive impact on the future of hunting.
Meadow, it’s been a pleasure for me to meet you. We met for the Minnesota Governor’s Deer Opener. We met on that panel and it was really great meeting you, then following up with the Women’s Pheasant Opener down in Luverne. You’re living proof of the impact that you’re having in women hunters in your home state of Minnesota. I wish you well in the contest. I don’t know how it’s all going to shake out there in Dallas. I know you’ll be there. Thank you so much for being a part of Whitetail Rendezvous. I wish you the best of fortune.
Thanks so much, Bruce. I appreciate it.
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About Meadow kouffeld
When we leave this world, we leave something behind. One way or another, for better or worse. Equally true is our inheritance upon birth. I was not born into wealth rather a rich life. My inheritance is one of the skills, knowledge, and passion for the outdoors. I am fortunate for my upbringing. Most girls and women never get the opportunities that I did. I am working to change that.
My personal and professional interests surrounding the decline in hunter participation and its impacts on wildlife resources has driven me to spend a significant amount of time working with hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) efforts focused on women. I relate to the Extreme Huntress competition goals through recognizing that women play critical roles in their children’s perspective and eventual participation in hunting. It has been said that you cannot plant seeds on sidewalks. To me, this means that we can’t continue to pour our limited R3 resources into youth hunting programs and expect success if we do not recruit the parents. In the end, if the parents are not supportive of their child hunting and do not continue to provide opportunities to develop skills, the youth’s interest will wither and die. As a result, we gain no new hunters to stem the decline. For positive results, we should look to the non-hunting parents, especially mom.
Women are the fastest growing demographic in hunting but there are still significant barriers to their recruitment. One of the hurdles of recruiting women into hunting is breaking the ingrained perspective that hunting is a man’s sport. This is one area that I feel like I can make a difference. One way to overcome this perception is to increase efforts that promote knowledgeable and competent female role models and leaders that hunt in the media and beyond. In addition to my efforts to develop a women’s R3 program, I strive to be the best example of a hunter and angler in both my personal and professional life and continue to produce positive images and examples of women in the field in different media outlets.